Better paying jobs aren’t enough to ensure women’s economic stability, according to a new study. For black women and Latinas in particular, a focus on bridging the “wealth gap” rather than the pay gap may make the most sense.

On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The briefers reported that there was a growing
perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to
Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American
promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was
jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a
senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow … and too
late.”

Petraeus sent a paper to the White House requesting that the
West Bank and Gaza (which, with Israel, is a part of the European Command — or
EUCOM), be made a part of his area of operations. Petraeus’s reason was
straightforward: with U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.
military had to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region’s most troublesome conflict.

While Petraeus’s request that CENTCOM be expanded to include the Palestinians
was denied (“it was dead on arrival,” a Pentagon officer confirms), the Obama administration
decided it would redouble its efforts — pressing Israel once again on the
settlements issue, sending Mitchell on a visit to a number of Arab capitals and
dispatching Mullen for a carefully arranged meeting with the chief of the Israeli
General Staff, Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi.

Joya, who spent most of her childhood in the refugee camps of Iran and Pakistan, may be a familiar name to those who follow events in Afghanistan. In 2005, she ran for Afghanistan’s parliament by building a grassroots campaign based on outspoken criticism of the warlords who, with the help of their U.S. backers, have been literally running the country into the ground.

I knew that the U.S.-installed Afghan government and its stooges might try to benefit from my presence in Parliament—to show to the world that there was a real democracy in Afghanistan because even a critic of the occupation and warlords could be elected. And there were a few Afghans who criticized me for joining this corrupt, warlord-ridden parliament. I simply told them an Afghan proverb: how can you catch tiger cubs without entering the tiger’s lair? I was ready to go to the lair, to hunt them in their own house.

Indeed, she was so outspoken that she was suspended from parliament in 2007 for “insulting” fellow representatives. Her struggle to gain back her rightful parliamentary seat has garnered international attention and support in the form of defense committees and various informal activist networks. “My enemies have accidentally given me a gift,” as she puts it.

Along with the stifling level of poverty, Afghan women suffer the highest rates of depression in the world. This is why much of Joya’s time working in an orphanage and as an underground schoolteacher was spent trying to convince women not to commit suicide. It’s no wonder. It’s still the case that women cannot safely go to school and get an education, nor can they go anywhere without an acceptable male chaperone. Prostitution has reached unprecedented rates. Divorce is all but unobtainable for most women and the horrors of domestic violence and rape are daily realities for which perpetrators face no consequences. So profound is the feeling of despair that over the past few years hundreds of Afghan women have chosen the almost unimaginable act of self-immolation as the only escape.

Frankly, it’s impossible to tell the difference between those who call themselves Taliban and those who hold all the power in Kabul today. The latter dress up like democrats, only to hide their Taliban mentality. And because of them, after more than eight years of intervention by the United States and NATO, women’s rights have not been brought to Afghanistan, and we have achieved neither democracy nor justice. It seems clear that the U.S. government simply wants any gang in Afghanistan that will obey its directions accurately and act according to U.S. policies, and these fundamentalist bands of the Northern Alliance have proved throughout their life that they are ready to sacrifice Afghanistan’s national interests for their lust for power and money.

To the benefit of the many not-very-bright zionist wannabe apologists who read this blog assiduously, I decided to offer a clear and simple method of arguing the case for Israel. This clear and simple method has been distilled from a life spent listening to and reading Zionist propaganda. It is easy to follow and results are guaranteed or your money back.

Sit down at any dinner table in the Arab world and the conversation will inevitably turn to one of the enduring mysteries of the region. How is it that America has shown such unwavering support for Israel over the decades?

“Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop,” he said. “She waved for the bulldozer to stop and waved. She fell down and the bulldozer kept going. We yelled ‘stop, stop,’ and the bulldozer didn’t stop at all. It had completely run over her and then it reversed and ran back over her.”
-from Ha’aretz